The educational quality perception, professional interest, and career choices among hospitality postgraduate students

Brain drain has become an important issue throughout the health service sector, with gender imbalance and employment discrimination leading to an increasing number of master's graduates opting to leave the profession. To explore this issue, the study examines the impact of both internal and external factors on the employment choices of postgraduate students, which starting from the core factor of the quality of higher education and combined with the professional interest as personal factor. The study adopts the questionnaire survey method to collect questionnaire data from 338 hospitality postgraduate students in China's institutions of higher education. The study adopts Multiple Linear Regression analysis to draw the following conclusions: 1) there is a significant influence of educational quality perception on career choice, the higher the level of educational quality perception, the stronger the students' willingness to choose this field for career development; 2) there is a significant effect of professional interest on career choice, the higher the student's level of interest in the major, the greater the willingness to choose this field for career development. 3) Identity mediates the relationship between educational quality perception (and professional interest) and career choice, which means that educational quality perception and professional interest can contribute to career decisions by promoting students' identity; 4) Future work self positively moderates the relationship between identity and career choice. The clearer the students' goals for their future job development, the stronger the effect of professional identity on career choice. The research conclusions have positive implications for higher education and career guidance for postgraduate students in hospitality management.